


put your faith in what you most believe in

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: adrien augreste 2020 [9]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien AUGreste 2020, Gen, Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste's Bodyguard Knows, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste's Bodyguard, Runaway Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, but its TREATED like disaster aftermath, disaster aftermath, le gorille pov, okay the disasters technically ongoing, who has it? everyone in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: The Gorilla stops just long enough to lean on the alley wall, trying to catch his breath and trying not to look back at what he's pretty sure is the swell of an earthquake or to listen to the rising screams.He stops just in time to see Adrien, shoulders tensed at the sound of those screams, take a deep breath and straighten up before he transforms in a wash of green light.Right.So.This kid probably doesn't need a bodyguard.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Le Gorille | Adrien Agreste's Bodyguard
Series: adrien augreste 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860751
Comments: 87
Kudos: 539





	put your faith in what you most believe in

**Author's Note:**

> for the gorilla prompt for adrien augreste- thanks for the beta, shinobicyrus!

The job had seemed a whole lot easier back when he'd first taken it.

But then, the kid had been a lot younger then, and as far as the Gorilla knows he'd only made the one attempt at running away. The Gorilla hadn't been around for that attempt, and he's realised since that it's probably what drove them to hire him in the first place, but Adrien hadn't tried again for a few years.

Once he had, though, he's never seemed inclined to stop. 

The Gorilla is definitely supposed to be stopping him.

He doesn't want to lose this job, but he also doesn't particularly... _want_ to stop Adrien from running. 

Whether or not it even counts as running _away_ is debatable. Not only does the kid keep coming back long past when the Gorilla thinks _he_ would have, most of the time Adrien's trying to get _to_ something. He slips out his window repeatedly to try and get to school, he sneaks away to try and see his friends, and he vanishes for the entirety of every akuma attack. 

It's that last one that gives the Gorilla headaches and possibly an ulcer.

Counter-intuitively, it's also that last one that means he eventually starts not-so-accidentally losing track of Adrien more often. 

Initially he doesn't think of it, because initially he actually is trying to keep his charge away from attacks. It's his job to make sure the kid's not hurt, and besides that, Adrien's a good kid and doesn't deserve to _get_ hurt. It's hard to blame him for bolting during an akuma attack when everyone else is doing the same thing- and frankly, the Gorilla knows that the kid's smart enough to stay out of range, whatever his parents might have thought- but he wishes Adrien would at least not take off at the first sign of danger nearly every time. 

It's also really, really weird that Adrien almost always takes off at the first sign of danger, especially since the very few times he doesn't are the times he's too busy pushing someone else _out_ of danger. 

The Gorilla tries to follow him, obviously, but Adrien makes that stunningly difficult. He starts vanishing into the chaos of each attack in a way that makes it very clear, at least to his bodyguard, that he could have been vanishing this easily all along. 

(That brings up a lot more concern about how surprising it is that the kid continues to come back. He's coming back for his friends, not for his father, and Gabriel hasn't figured out yet that trying to _take_ Adrien from his friends is going to end poorly. 

For Gabriel). 

The akuma attacks don't take long to start blurring together, so it's hard to say how long it's been when the Gorilla finally _does_ catch up with Adrien in time. 

The Gorilla stops just long enough to lean on the alley wall, trying to catch his breath and trying _not_ to look back at what he's pretty sure is the swell of an earthquake or to listen to the rising screams. 

He stops just in time to see Adrien, shoulders tensed at the sound of those screams, take a deep breath and straighten up before he transforms in a wash of green light. 

Right.

So.

This kid probably doesn't need a bodyguard. 

In fact, if the Gorilla _had_ caught him, things would likely be going badly- and since the Gorilla finds himself helping to pull people from a still-collapsing building not five minutes later, he doesn't want to know just what _badly_ could have meant. 

"Why are we doing this?" the man next to the Gorilla moans, trying and failing to lift a heavy chunk of concrete until the Gorilla reaches over and lifts it for him. The man comes with it for a few minutes before he remembers to let go.

The woman on his other side snorts, exchanging a glance with the Gorilla, because there's always someone like this. "We're doing this because there are still _people_ in here, Tim." 

"Ladybug will fix that, though." 

The Gorilla exchanges another look with the woman as he wonders whether or not Tim is even listening to himself, because the way that came out-

It quickly puts the Gorilla on the defensive, and he usually already is, but not quite like this. 

"Her Cure fixes damage, Tim, not _trauma._ Also, hi, I'm Zoé," she adds, nodding to the Gorilla and sounding, for a split second, much friendlier. "And Tim's an idiot."

"Hey!" 

"Sorry. He's an insensitive idiot."

The Gorilla huffs out what might be a laugh from anyone else. He's not sure; he hasn't laughed in a while, now. 

Tim's struggling again where Zoé isn't, so the Gorilla moves to help with the next section of wall. Nothing about the way they're doing this is safe or smart and the walls could fall in on them next at any moment, and yet whatever else Tim may be he's also still _here,_ so his companion's assessment of him might not be as accurate as she thinks. 

"Those heroes are kids," Zoé says, flatly, as she ducks under the Gorilla's arm with a nod of thanks. "You can see that, right? Like, I know no one wants to talk about it, 'cause what are we gonna do about it, but they're way too small to _not_ be kids." 

Tim, who probably can't see through a crowd without standing on a box, glares at her and is summarily ignored for it. "Yeah, okay, but I'm not disputing that. I'm just _saying,_ whatever we fix Ladybug's just gonna fix _better,_ so-"

"You're _just_ putting the responsibility of _raising the dead_ on a _kid,_ Tim." 

The Gorilla grunts and almost loses the brickwork he's propped up with one shoulder, saved by Zoé hurdling a fallen beam to brace herself next to him. His hands full, the Gorilla can't ask what he wants to ask, which is a version of _what about Chat Noir._

Because for all these two's talk of heroes, they haven't said much at all about his- about Adrien. About Chat Noir.

Shit, the kid _is_ Chat Noir. Has maybe always been Chat Noir. 

No wonder he doesn't have any trouble slipping his leash. 

The Gorilla's two unplanned allies go silent for a while after that, all three of them working in tandem to find survivors and drag them to safety. The Gorilla more often than not finds himself propping up a piece of wall or ceiling while Zoé works someone free and Tim flags down the nearest medic. 

This is how he ends up spending most battles by now, honestly. Zoé had a very good point about trauma. Paris as a city has been more damaged by Hawkmoth's attention than the man himself likely knows; it's easy to spot the way people go silent and wary at any signs of emotional outbursts, even something as small as a child crying over a skinned knee, because Hawkmoth has gone after victims younger than that for less reason than that. People flinch and jump at loud noises like they're living in a war zone, because to some extent they _are._

Hawkmoth keeps trying to paint himself as the good guy. 

Hawkmoth keeps trying to paint a target on two kids who actually _are_ trying their hardest to do the right thing.

Hawkmoth keeps painting a target on _Adrien._

There's already an akumatised victim somewhere in the city, so the Gorilla allows himself a moment to feel the rage that sweeps over him at that thought. It's not as though his job didn't already entail keeping the kid safe from Hawkmoth, but it's different to know that Adrien is actively _fighting_ him. 

He's not getting himself out of danger after all. He's throwing himself _into_ it. 

The Gorilla's starting to seriously wonder if this kid was adopted. He sure didn't pick _that_ trick up from either- any- of his parents. (Nathalie predates the Gorilla's employment. He's inclined to count her). 

Ten minutes and four rescues later, the Gorilla spots a fluttering poster on what used to be an inside wall. He plucks it down and folds it over, emphasizing Chat Noir where he's guarding his partner's back, and shows it to Tim and Zoé. 

Zoé blinks, looking between the poster and the Gorilla before something seems to click.

Tim leans over too, eyes tracing the figure on the poster before he lets out a derisive snort that puts the Gorilla's hackles up. "Yeah, it's a really good thing he knows his partner's more important than him, right? Imagine if he let _her_ take a hit one of these times and we just got left with even more of this destruction." He nods around them at the building, still in the slow stages of collapsing, still an unsafe place for them to be.

The Gorilla finds he's growling. He shifts his weight, finding that he's also weighing the merits of dropping parts of the wall on Tim. 

Tim takes a wary step back. 

"Still a kid, Tim," Zoé points out tiredly, moving to take Tim's place. "He still shouldn't be a soldier in the first place." 

Tim stumbles to a halt and the Gorilla's eyes narrow in satisfaction. The anger in him that he's free to feel until the end of this battle feels like it's purring, reminding him powerfully of the kid, who he's realising now has definitely _made_ that noise before. 

"He's not a- he's not a _soldier,"_ Tim tries, aiming for derisive and missing by a mile. His voice wavers. "He's not in the _trenches,_ Zo, he's not fighting in a-" He falters. 

"He's not?" Zoé asks pointedly, tugging the poster from the Gorilla's grasp and unfolding it carefully. "Hey, remember this battle?" 

Tim swallows, eyes locked on the revealed part of the poster. Someone had painted Sandboy in broad strokes in the background. "You know I don't." 

"I know you remember part of it." She shakes the poster at her friend, eyes darting to the Gorilla and then flinching away again. "You know what part you _don't?_ It's the part where Chat Noir made sure they could _win."_ Zoé growls a little herself. "It's a war for _them_ , Tim, and I'm not sure they know it. Just because it's not like _your_ war doesn't make it any less real." She leans in, and the Gorilla finds himself leaning back, even though she's not talking to him. "Just because we came back doesn't mean we didn't die, and if he wasn't fighting for us then we would have _stayed_ that way! So don't _say_ shit like that!" 

The Gorilla shifts his weight to get their attention and then moves one hand up to cup his ear, leaning into a listening stance. 

"Exactly." The fight seems to be draining out of Zoé again. "We don't know who they are. Would you say that to his face?" 

Tim reels back, eyes wide and suddenly horrified. "Of course not!"

"Well you could be, so _don't say it,_ Tim!" Zoé glares. 

Tim's not the only one who calls Chat Noir less than his partner. 

Tim's... _far_ from the only one. 

People _have_ said it to his face. 

The Gorilla nearly does drop the wall on Tim then, but it wouldn't be on purpose. He manages to keep it up long enough for them to confirm there's no bodies here, breathing or otherwise, and as they move on to the next section there's a swarm of light and ladybugs. 

The Gorilla sighs when a galley kitchen reforms around him, leaving Tim and Zoé comfortably on the other side of the far-too-close counter. 

He scrapes his shoulders getting out. 

There's a terrified teenager on the couch, knees pulled to his chest, and they take him with as they head back for the street where the medic had wisely stayed.

(The teen's older than Adrien is. Probably makes him older than Adrien's partner, too).

Zoé taps the Gorilla on the chest and hands him a notebook. The Gorilla sighs again, having thought he'd escaped this time, but when he looks down it's not the blank notepad he expects. 

It's full of names and phone numbers. 

He raises an eyebrow at Zoé, who flushes. "Hey, it's not what it looks like. I like to keep in touch with people I meet doing this, that's all. It's how I met Tim." She nods towards her friend, and now that she says that the Gorilla realises they _do_ seem like an odd pair. For all their bickering, Zoé hasn't let Tim out of her sight once. 

Tim's ignoring them now, staring up at the rebuilt apartment complex (they hadn't been sure if it _was_ an apartment complex) and letting their rescued teenager cling to him shakily. Tim looks deeply uncomfortable, but he doesn't move away. The Gorilla sees his mouth move. 

He doubts it was something Tim meant anyone to overhear, but his silent _they shouldn't be soldiers_ drops the Gorilla's own shoulders.

He adds his name and number to Zoé's book. If he can't help the kid with his battles, he can still help. 

The Gorilla had started collecting superhero figurines long before there had been even a whisper of Hawkmoth's existence. For the first time, he lets Adrien find out about it. 

For the first time, he makes sure the kid sees the abundance of Chat Noir figures, as the Gorilla starts valuing them above any of the rest. 

(For the first time, the Gorilla acknowledges that this stopped being just a job to him years ago).

**Author's Note:**

> so originally i just picked tim from a list of names, but then i got to the end and went '... wait, is this basically magnus archives tim?' so uh, hi tim? youre, youre probably safer in paris even _with_ hawkmoth, tim. 
> 
> yes its a tarzan reference in the title, yes i think im funny, but also it ended up bein a good fit for the fic


End file.
